


'Smith' Will Suffice

by tielan



Series: Unfinished Symphonies [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28068462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: As Fury liked to observe, trained professionals were easy; lucky amateurs were a bitch.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Series: Unfinished Symphonies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047115
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	'Smith' Will Suffice

**Author's Note:**

> This was the original start for what eventually became [The Guy, The Spy, His Not-Wife, And Their Handler](https://archiveofourown.org/works/692154). I think I like that one better. :)

Clint wasn’t surprised that such a scrawny guy could put up such a fight; after all, he’d been a scrawny guy once, a long time back.

He was surprised that the guy managed to get a lucky elbow in, requiring Natasha to tie him up.

As Fury observed, trained professionals were easy; lucky amateurs were a bitch.

Clint glared with his non-swollen eye at the man who shifted the armchair facing the windows, a blackout bag over his head. Behind the target, Natasha tilted her head to ask if he was ready before whipping the bag off the man’s head.

She sashayed over to the upholstered antique sofa and sat down beside Clint, leaning casually against him as she toyed with a Walther 330, and playing the beautiful sexy interrogator for all she was worth.

Clint pressed the ice-pack to his head, playing it surly - although he didn’t have to play very hard. And he wasn’t pressing very hard either. His eye throbbed beneath his bruised brow like invisible gremlins were playing the bongo drums on his brow and the morning sun’s glow through the faded curtains was bright enough to add coronas to his vision.

Now all he needed was a lime.

He pushed the whimsy from his thoughts and focused on the man peering blearly at them through the golden light.

His name was Leo Koublas and SHIELD had evidence that he was a double agent with the EU for Chechnyan separatists. Which would not have been enough to get him on SHIELD’s radar if not for the rather large stockpile of chemical inhibitors that went missing - and were discovered stockpiled elsewhere.

Their brief was simple enough: get hold of Koublas and interrogate with extreme prejudice.

“Oh thank God, it’s you.”

Not what usually came out of a target’s mouth when they realised who they were facing.

Clint knew neither of them betrayed surprise - they were too good for that - but he felt a frisson of something uncomfortable slide down his spine. It was possible the man knew their histories and was trying for a plea bargain - something which Coulson had nixed at the outset.

_He knows too much._

“Who do you work for?”

“Well,” Koublas began, “that’s a bit of a problem, you see. Because it’s not who I work for, it’s who _you_ work for.” 

Natasha tilted her head, red hair sliding over her shoulder. “And who do we work for?”

“Maybe it’s who you _don’t_ work for,” he said after a moment. “Which would be us. And that’s a problem.”

_Us?_

“A problem how?”

He tried to scratch his ear with his shoulder. “See, they don’t tell me these things. I’m just the message.”

_I’m just the message._

Clint stood and circled the sofa, went to the windows of the old farmhouse and squinted outside through the broken panes. He ignored the pain of his throbbing eye and let his gaze drift across the fields as he sought out the dips and hollows of the land, looking for something that might betray---

_There_ .

A slight break in the soft flow of the fields. A shift of grasses in a direction opposite to the wind.

“South-east,” he said feeling the chase pulse in his blood. Whether he was the hunter or the hunted, there was always a particular enjoyment in this pursuit. “One klick, maybe two.”

Natasha had already crossed to the window on the side of the room and was peering out through the old curtains. “This side, too. Past the silver oak, near where the road intersects.”

“We won’t have time to run,” Clint muttered, trying out the various exit vectors in his head. None of them were particularly promising. 

“Do we need to?” Natasha arched one delicate birdwinged eyebrow at him. 

Clint thought of the SHIELD arsenal kept in the basement of the house and grinned as he headed for the door.

“Hey!” Koublas yelled. “What about me?”

“Bunker?” Clint asked Natasha.

“He’s a liability.”

“We might need him for later interrogation.”

She shrugged. “Bunker, then. But you have to carry him.”

“Great.”

“You suggested it. I’ll call the situation in.”

Clint whipped the blackout bag over Koublas’ head and sliced through the bindings that held the man to the chair, but not the ones that tied his hands together. Then he hauled the man over his shoulder and headed for the bunker, not bothering to be gentle. If the guy managed to sock him another one, he was going to knock the man out and damn the consequences. His eye still throbbed.

Behind him, Natasha was giving the codes for a compromised location.

“You guys got a bunker down here?”

Clint didn’t bother answering as he dumped the man on the pallet in the lockout room, cut the ties around the man’s wrists and ankles, closed the door, locked and bolted it. SHIELD would come back for Koublas - the man was valuable as a source of information – but they couldn't trust him, and at best he'd be a liability in a fight.

He ignored the bashing on the lockout room’s door and started going through the safehouse’s arsenal as Natasha came down the stairs holding the backpacks they’d brought with them. Plenty of guns and ammunition, more than a couple of SHIELD specialty surprises, and body armour.

“Desert Eagles,” Natasha said pushing a case of handguns over his way as she pulled a change of clothing out of her backpack. “I’m going to change.”

Clint didn’t avert his eyes as she toed out of her shoes and untied the saffron waistband of the dress, tugged the hem up over her head in a rustle of silky black fabric, but he didn’t linger either. The Black Widow was a weapon, bred and trained for deadly combat. A man who knew that and forgot it was a fool. But Natasha Romanoff was a beautiful woman, and Clint allowed himself to appreciate the view for all of two seconds before he continued sorting through the ammunition they had.


End file.
